R.I.P. Kirstie Alley, Cheers and Look Who's Talking star
Alley, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer, was 71.
Kirstie Alley, the star of Cheers, Veronica’s Closet, and the Look Who’s Talking film series, has died. The actor’s family recently confirmed that she had been diagnosed with cancer. She was 71.
“We are sad to inform you that our incredible, fierce, and loving mother has passed away after a battle with cancer, only recently discovered,” the family wrote in a statement on Twitter. “She was surrounded by her closest famil and fought with great strength, leaving us with a certainty of her never-ending joy of living and whatever adventures lie ahead. As iconic as she as on screen, she was an even more amazing mother and grandmother.”
“Our mother’s zest and passion for life, her children, grandchildren and her many animals, not to mention her eternal joy of creating were unparalleled and leave us inspired to live life to the fullest just as she did.”
Born on January 12, 1951, in Wichita, Kansas, to the owner of a lumber company, Alley is perhaps best known as Rebecca Howe, the stern and calculating bar owner on Cheers, a role she landed in the late-80s. However, she didn’t start acting until she was 30—though her rise to the top was swift. After taking an acting class, a friend set helped her land an agent, and soon after, she was cast in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, the seventh highest-grossing film of 1982. “I know some actors really study their asses off for years, and they have a craft,” she said. “I’m just this starstruck fan who got lucky.”
Box office success followed her in the 80s, landing several hit comedies, including Summer School and Look Who’s Talking, which spawned two sequels, but her work on the small screen made her a star. Replacing Shelley Long on the hit sitcom Cheers was no easy feat in 1988. Long and co-star Ted Danson had driven much of the buzz surrounding the series. But Alley entered the bar as a force to be reckoned with. As the stern and calculating Rebecca Howe, Alley helped carry the series five seasons.
It wasn’t an immediate success. Originally cast as the stern bar owner, a foil to Danson’s cocksure Sam Malone, it wasn’t until the series honed in on Alley’s neurosis that the character came alive. Nevertheless, Alley’s talent for playing an intelligent, confident career woman on the verge of a mental breakdown breathed new life into the show. Alley was nominated for five Emmys for her efforts and won her first statue in 1991.
Her time in the Emmy spotlight was not over. A year after Cheers’ 1993 series finale, she won a second Emmy for the made-for-TV movie David’s Mother, in which she starred opposite Sam Waterson, Stockard Channing, and Phylicia Rashad.
After starring in It Takes Two, opposite Steve Gutenberg and the Olsen twins, and John Carpenter’s Village Of The Damned, Alley returned to television. Veronica’s Closet premiered in 1997 and earned Alley another Emmy nomination. By the end of the 90s, she was starring in the future cult classic Drop Dead Gorgeous as a former teen beauty pageant.
While she remained a staple of television throughout the 2000s and 2010s, appearing on Dancing With The Stars, The Masked Singer, the reality show Kirstie Alley’s Big Life, as well as several sitcoms, including Kirstie and Fat Actress, Alley voiced her support over the January 6 insurrectionists and the War in Ukraine. Still, Alley remained an icon on television, continually reinventing herself and finding new places to share her comedic gifts.
Alley is survived by two children.